In the testing of high speed electronic devices such as circuit board testing, testing is difficult at operational speeds. In conventional operation of a computer platform, when a reset sequence is run, the reset process is to shut down each unnecessary element to reduce power consumption.
However, the IO (input-output) blocks will be shut down if the system is taken out of operational mode. Board testing generally requires that all components be powered in order to provide testing of such components.
Further, the addition of internal switching to a platform to enable the testing operation of IO blocks in platform testing would be very expensive and difficult to implement into boards for testing purposes.